Digital Infrastructure Programmes
NOTE: ALL FUNDING FIGURES IN THIS WORK PLAN ARE DRAFT AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE AS IMPLEMENTATION AND PLANS PROGRESS.
Contents
1Digital Infrastructure
2Programme Blueprints
2.1Information and Library Infrastructure
2.1.1Information and library resources, services and systems: emerging opportunities
2.1.2Digital preservation and curation
2.1.3Resource Discovery
2.2Research Management
2.2.1Repositories
2.2.2Research Information Management
2.2.3Research Data Management
2.3Research
2.3.1Research Tools Programme
2.3.2Research Support Programme
2.4Digital Infrastructure Directions
2.4.1Strategic Directions
2.4.2Technical Directions
2.4.3Legal Directions
2.4.4Access and Identity Management
2.4.5Identifiers
2.4.6Curating institutional assets / institutions using open approaches
2.4.7Programme management
1Digital Infrastructure
The objective of the Digital Infrastructure portfolio is to develop an infrastructure that supports the requirements of research and learning. Digital Infrastructure includes technical services, standards, software tools, supporting policies, practice and regulatory frameworks. It allows for the appropriate creation, management and exploitation of information, resources and services to enable effective and high quality research and education.
The Digital Infrastructure programmes provide the direction for, and to develop, the infrastructure that the higher education sector requires, ensuring that technology is exploited and related practice developed to improve resources and services for research and education. The main focus is on shared technologies and services that improve efficiency and effectiveness in terms of digital resources and content and how these can be better managed and used so that research and education is enhanced.
The two main JISC strategic objectives that the Digital Infrastructure programmes work to are:
- To provide cost-effective and sustainable shared national services and resources
- To help institutions to improve the quality, impact and productivity of academic research
The programme work aims to:
- develop digital service infrastructure at a shared JISC level, this can be centralised and hosted nationally (and sometimes international infrastructure will be appropriate); it can also be developed in a shared way across local HEI provision. Exploiting the network with integration into the web and the use of global services is a key part of the approach to support maximum re-use, efficiency and the collaboration required for research and education
- develop technologies, approaches, policies and practice to create, manage, share, integrate and use information and technical services for education and research.
- develop and lead strategy that will help to lead change that takes advantage of the opportunities offered by technology and digital infrastructure to improve information curation and use and support research and where relevant other aspects of education such as learning.
There are 4 Digital Infrastructure programmes. The blueprints for each programme are represented in section 2. Each programme is broken down into a number of strands.
This workplan was agreed by the last meetings of the JISC Infrastructure and Resources and the JISC Support of Research committees in May 2012.
2Programme Blueprints
2.1Information and Library Infrastructure
Information and library infrastructure has been key to the delivery of the JISC mission since its inception as it is a core area where shared practice and services can serve the research and learning missions of universities. There has been a broad range of activity that has resulted in infrastructure, practice and policy across information provision, such as digital preservation, curation, sharing of institutional assets, e-journal infrastructure, library management systems, resource discovery and licensing. Collectively this activity has enabled the delivery of what might be termed a distributed digital library for UK higher education. There is now an opportunity to mange this activity in a more holistic way to help to better address the current needs of libraries. However it will be important not to lose some of the breadth of vision that is required to enable necessary change in information provision. Therefore whilst much of the activity will be focused on ‘library’ requirements there will be activity that supports the integration of information and services on the web and that deals with distribution and re-use in a broad sense. This work will deliver all three of the digital infrastructure aims: service infrastructure; improved and fit for purpose technologies, policies and approaches and change through developing shared understanding and approaches.
2.1.1Information and library resources, services and systems: emerging opportunities
The rationale for this activity is to identify and address emerging opportunities and trends to help academic libraries in their delivery of relevant and appropriate services to their users. The work aims to ensure the ease, efficiency and continuity of access to scholarly resources as required by researchers and students continues, by enabling libraries to identify and adapt to the changing information ecosystem. Some work will seek to implement shared services and the associated change other activity will look at newer trends and related solutions.
Activity / Timescale / CostsSupporting the eBook ecosystem / August 2011- July 2012
Activity data services and efficiencies / August 2011- July 2012
Policies, roles and skills in support of research and learning / August 2011- July 2012
Shared services – shared cataloguing, resource management, de-duplication etc / August2011- July 2012
Other activity underway with allocations set aside- Electronic Resource Management, Mobile, Usage Statistics, JORUM / August 2011- July 2012
Total funding recommended from AY 2011/12 (core) / £1.6m
2.1.2Digital preservation and curation
The digital preservation programme will carry out advocacy, partnership and innovation development work to ensure UK Higher Education has ongoing access to the digital information that it needs. The work programme addresses some ‘here and now’ issues, for example shared infrastructure for e-journal archiving, and some longer term issues, such as how curation can be supported in a cloud environment. One of the critical issues in managing information effectively is the cost benefit of doing so and this will be one of the areas of focus building on the work of keeping research data safe, LIFE and the feasibility study of the costs observatory that is currently underway.
Activity / Timescale / Costse-journal archiving / August 2011 – July 2012
Preservation business case / August 2011 – July 2012
Web preservation / August 2011 – July 2012
Information Management costs/sustainability / August 2011 – July 2013
Skills & training / August 2011 – July 2013
Supporting existing activities including –the ejournal archiving services PECAN and PEPRS, LOCKSS, Preservation of complex objects
Total funding recommended from AY 2011/12 (core) (rounded) / £1m
2.1.3Resource Discovery
This activity supports the Resource Discovery Taskforce (RDTF) vision and aims to enable the accessibility and re-use of resources in a flexible way that results in students, researchers and teachers benefitting from flexible and innovative services for the managing of resources and their discovery. The approach underpins more efficient services and reduced duplication. Alongside this the concept of the ‘data driven infrastructure’ is supported through this approach and the lessons from linked data and trends in open bibliography will be exploited. The work will result in clear guidance, improved practice and approaches to enable the RDTF vision and broader resource discovery and use requirements to be met; some of this might be via JISC services.
Activity / Timescale / CostsThe Discovery project / Sept 2011- March2012
Discovery Community engagement / August 2011- July 2012
Developing services and tools designed to implement the RDTF vision / August 2011- July 2012
Projects to support the publication of open metadata from libraries, museums and archives. / August 2011- July 2012
Total funding recommended from AY 2011/12 / £1.1m (core)
£1.2m (capital)
2.2Research Management
The aim of this programme is to produce and support the development, take-up and embedding of more efficient and effective systems and practices for managing research activity and outputs.
The blueprint sees research managers having the tools, technologies, skills and support to guide, develop and exploit (inter)national and local ICT resources to improve the efficiency and effectiveness with which research is managed. This is a hybrid infrastructure, since research activities and outputs cross organisational boundaries. It will consist of some shared services and much local, distributed practice and systems that will need to interoperate effectively. Funders will maintain policies with respect to the research they fund, and many will maintain systems holding information about that research. Similarly, institutions will maintain policies and infrastructure related to the research they host. Researchers will conduct research and disseminate outputs, exploiting funder, institutional, publisher, personal and web infrastructure components. Research managers will have systems that collate the information and traces from this hybrid infrastructure. JISC and other service providers will maintain shared services that meet some of the requirements of each of these stakeholders, with appropriate business models. The challenge for the programme is to ensure that these components work together for the benefit of HE
2.2.1Repositories
Considerable investment by HEIs, research funders and JISC has developed a substantial UK repository infrastructure. While room remains for some targeted innovation and further community support, the overwhelming requirement now is to rationalise the service environment, to develop a coherent suite of services that are innovative, efficient and effective in themselvesand enable HEIs to be more so.
Activity / Timescale / CostsRepository shared services (including curation) / May 2011 – March 2013
Repository priority problem spaces (“deposit”, guidance, etc) / August 2011 – July 2012
Other activity underway – Ethos, Repository Support Project, Romeo / August 2011 – July 2012
Total funding recommended from AY 2011/12(rounded) (core) / £452k (core)
£2m (capital)
2.2.2Research Information Management
The focus of work in this area has been to establish a common approach to technical interoperability, and to support an emerging community of practice focused on better management of administrative data relating to research. With significant progress on this, the aim of the programme now is to embed good practice more widely, and demonstrate the benefits by exploiting opportunities that arise during the programme timescale, including REF as a driver for many HEIs, HEFCE investment in the “Research Management and Administration System” shared service, the Research Identifiers cross-sector “Task and Finish” Group/ ORCID, and the US National Science Foundation / NIH “STAR Metrics” programme and its take up internationally.
The ultimate aim is to reduce the burden on individual researchers and free up more time for them to concentrate on research. However, benefits will accrue on other levels: institutions will make efficiency savings and gain better business intelligence for strategic planning etc., Research Councils could benefit from richer, faster reporting, HEFCE and HESA could see their costs reduced by improved automation of their data gathering.
Activity / Timescale / CostsSpreading and embedding good practice beyond the existing community, including support for REF and collaboration with RMAS / August 2011 – July 2013
Implementing a UK approach to “researcher identifiers” / August 2011 – July 2013
STAR-Metrics pilot / August 2011 – July 2013
Total funding recommended from AY 2011/12 (core) / £1.1m
2.2.3Research Data Management
Improved Research Data Management has been recognised as key to supporting research which increasingly relies upon digital data assets and can be regarded as ‘data intensive’. The case has been made in a series of reports, many commissioned by JISC; and is reinforced by activities overseas, most notably in Australia, the US, Netherlands and Germany. In line with this international trend, the recent ‘Riding the Wave’ report from the European Commission presents a vision of collaborative data infrastructure and urges further investment.
In the UK, inroads have been made, with investment from JISC, the Research Councils and more recently via the HEFCE Universities Modernisation Fund investment. Data infrastructure must be constructed at a number of levels in order to be flexible and responsive to need. JISC has a key role, therefore, in building this infrastructure in Universities. The support required for research data management needs to be considered broadly, comprising planning tools, data management systems, data repositories, infrastructure and standards for data publication and discovery. Human aspects cannot be neglected: policies, skills and capacity need to be addressed; and,as with any change programme, it is important to present evidence for the direction and focus of intervention.
Activity / Timescale / CostsDigital Curation Centre / Autumn – 2011 – Autumn 2012
Research Data Management Infrastructure - Projects to pilot institutional data management infrastructure. / Autumn – Spring 2013
Research Data Management Planning and Tools for Projects, Departments, Centres. / Autumn 2011 – Spring 2012
Data Management Planning Tools / Autumn – Spring 2013
Data Publication Infrastructure: Romeo for Data; DataCite guidance and good practice; interoperability and data publishing / Autumn 2011 – Autumn 2012
Research data management tools to support key points of the data management lifecycle, addressing gaps identified by currently completing projects. / Autumn 2011 – Autumn 2012
Infrastructure for data discovery, cross-search and analysis building upon the UMF pilots / Summer 2011 – Summer 2012
Summer 2012-Summer 2013
Research data management training / Autumn 2011 – Autumn 2012
Synthesis and Studies of the development, implementation of sustainable RDM strategy in research groups departments, centres and institutions / Early 2012
Social infrastructure models / Late 2012-2013
Total / £3.8m Capital (over 2 years)
£1.8m Core
2.3Research
Over the last twenty years, the power and capability of IT has increased exponentially providing both new research processes and increasing researchers’ productivity and ability to communicate their research within and without their communities. During this time, various infrastructures for networking and communication; data transfer, storage, discovery and retrieval; and computation and processing have emerged driven by initiatives such as the e-science programme. However, whilst there are many researchers making effective use of IT and infrastructure in their research, there are still researchers who are unaware of the opportunities today’s technology can offer in their research, or who, whilst aware of the opportunities, lack the capability, support and skills to realise these opportunities. Meanwhile, the potential capability of IT and infrastructure is increasing at breakneck speeds whilst research institutes and HEIs have increasingly limited resources (staff, time, money, energy, etc.) to take advantage of these opportunities.
2.3.1Research Tools Programme
The rationale for this programme is to ensure the research community is fully informed of the potential that IT and IT infrastructure can offer in the research process. The Tools and Technologies strand focuses on exploiting technologies and infrastructure in the research process and pushing the envelope to determine the future demands of research on infrastructures. Researchers will benefit through access to compute facilities and tools for (collaborative) research that facilitate collaboration and communication, improve research processes and enable new research findings.
Activity / Timescale / CostsNational Grid Service / Autumn 2011 – Autumn 2012
Exploiting infrastructure for Research
(distributed compute, cloud, visualisation, data mining, semantic services, linked data, geospatial) / Autumn 2011- Autumn 2012
Virtual Laboratory of the Future
(hybrid environments/reality, mobile interfaces, new interaction models / Autumn 2011 – Autumn 2013
Research collaboration and communications
(bridging institutions, research groups, nations, and citizen science, scholarly comms, Disseminating research/research impact within the research community/scholarly comms. Public outreach) / Autumn 2011 – Autumn 2012
Total funding recommended from AY 2011/12 (core) / £1.3m
2.3.2Research Support Programme
By supporting researchers UK plc would benefit from more leading edge research and greater research productivity. Universities would benefit from more productive research and individual researchers’ reputations would be enhanced. Whilst there are many researchers making effective use of IT and infrastructure in their research, there are still researchers who are unaware of the opportunities today’s technology can offer in their research, or who, whilst aware of the opportunities, lack the capability, support and skills to realise these opportunities.
Activity / Timescale / CostsResearcher Training / Autumn 2011- Autumn 2012
Institutional ICT Support for Research – models and guidance / Autumn 2011- Autumn 2012
Research and Developer Triage / Autumn 2011- Autumn 2012
JISC Advance for Research and VRE materials / Autumn 2011- Autumn 2012
Total funding recommended from AY 2011/12 (core) / £250K
2.4Digital Infrastructure Directions
The scope of the digital infrastructure for education and research includes technical shared services, technical standards, software tools, supporting policies, shared practice and regulatory frameworks. It is concerned with the persistence of information, the extent to which it can be understood, trusted and reused, and hence with the semantics, provenance and rights associated with the information, and the policies, skills, organisational arrangements and cultures of the people using it. These are common concerns across the other three programme areas. Many of the outputs will be made available in a way that they inform stakeholders clearly of the outputs and the relevance to them.
The aim of the activities under the “Digital Infrastructure Directions” blueprint is to provide the strategy and cross cutting evidence base and community support to underpin the work in the other programmes and to provide information for longer term planning. The work will identify and develop common and/or shared approaches, and to ensure that benefits from the programmes are widely spread. Many of these approaches are already established. By managing them under a single umbrella, it is hoped that there will be further cross-fertilisation between them, improving the quality and impact of the work done.
The activities under this blueprint vary in their design. They include programmes (such as Access and Identity Management), key projects (such as support for the UK Developer Community), and work under the auspices of the Innovation Support Centres and other centres of expertise. It is important to note that some of these activities (such as the Technical Observatory) are also relevant beyond the other three blueprints within the Digital Infrastructure portfolio.